5.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
Excellent all around earbuds
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2019
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Received my AirPods Pro a couple of days ago and have been using them day and night since. I also have the new Bose 700's, which I've been using daily for a couple of months so I'll compare to them. I commute each day on a noisy city bus. Sometimes there are...
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Received my AirPods Pro a couple of days ago and have been using them day and night since. I also have the new Bose 700's, which I've been using daily for a couple of months so I'll compare to them.
I commute each day on a noisy city bus. Sometimes there are people talking and sometimes there's nothing but the loud noises of the bus. The Bose headphones are not sweat or weatherproof, and so are not useful outside unless the skies are clear. With winter coming, the Bose also prevent wearing a winter hat, so I decided to buy the Air Pods for use in commuting and then use the Bose once I get to my desk at work.
I have never owned AirPods before. A friend at work has regular AirPods (not Pro), and the photo attached to my review shows the difference in size. These were easy to set up -- you just hold your unlocked iPhone a couple inches away from the AirPods in their charging case (with the case open). It's all seamless. They automatically showed up in my Macbook bluetooth menu once connected with the iPhone, so all I had to do was click "connect" in the bluetooth menu.
Interestingly, the play/pause squeeze of the stem doesn't seem to work for controlling the laptop -- maybe it only works for Apple Music, which I don't use so I didn't test. And the other thing different -- and worse -- than the Bose is that if I pause on the laptop and then play again on the phone, the AirPods are not automatically connected and the music came out of the phone directly. The Bose connects to two devices at once so it will play whichever one is playing sounds (which can be annoying if the phone is playing and the computer gives a notification sound or vice versa). But in order to play again on the phone, I had to go into the phone Bluetooth menu and reconnect (not re-pair, just reconnect). So my conclusion is you have to manually reconnect for device switching. You get a little alert sound when connected -- no voice, no battery status, no "connected to xxx" like the Bose does -- nothing else.
For music quality, the Bose quality is a fair amount better -- which would be expected since they are full size over the ear headphones. The AirPods Pro are still very good though, and unless you are an audiophile, you won't be disappointed.
Charging the AirPods case uses a standard iPhone/iPad lightning charger. It comes with a cable that will connect to a later model Macbook USB C port -- so USB C to lightning. If you want to use an outlet, you will need to have an existing lightning charger, which most of us have plenty of anyway. It's hard to tell when the case is completely charged. The orange light comes on but goes off after just a few seconds, instead of just staying on and changing to green once they're fully charged. The first night I got them, I charged them in the case overnight before using them. When I connected them, they said the AirPods were only 58% charged, so I'm not sure why they weren't 100% if left in there overnight.
There is a nice new longpress feature on the volume of the iPhone that appears when the AirPods are connected to the iPhone. You can control the volume (you can't control the volume right on the AirPods, which is a slight bummer but it's okay) and noise cancelling from this new interface.
There's no tapping on these AirPods -- you slightly squeeze the little stem. There is a soft click when it registers, almost like pressing a touch pad. It took a few seconds to figure out how to do it, but it's been fine since. A longer squeeze toggles between the noise cancellation modes. There's a slightly different sound for going into transparency mode and going into noise cancellation mode, but in a quiet room it's hard to tell which mode you're in, as opposed to the Bose, which literally tells you in a voice.
Transparency mode uses microphones to let in the sound around you, so that you can keep them in while still talking to people. This is how they differ from noise isolating earbuds, which block your ear from hearing anything but don't have active noise canceling. These have noise canceling I'll talk about in a minute. But there is also an "off" mode available only (that I've found) through the volume long press described above. These just put them in basic noise isolation mode -- I'm guessing similar to previous AirPods.
For noise cancellation, they are surprisingly very effective. More effective than I thought they would be. They are best at blocking out white noise -- bus engines, office sounds, fans, etc. They are good at voices if it's just people talking in a group at a normal volume. But when I walked through the busy office cafeteria at lunch time, they did not do as good of a job as the Bose at blocking out the loud talking and other uneven cafeteria noises. Interestingly, they do a great job at blocking one-off noises like a door slamming or someone dropping something. The Bose have a hard time with sounds like that for some reason. I would say they are 80-90% as effective as the full size over ear Bose overall, which is very impressive.
For comfort, obviously the Bose are better (and sound better) for hours of desk usage, and also given that the battery on the Bose is about 19 hours and these are about 4, the Bose will be what I use all day at my desk. But for moving around, walking the dogs, commuting, and portability, the AirPods are terrific and don't hurt at all or cause my ears to sweat like the Bose do after a while.
Would definitely recommend.
I commute each day on a noisy city bus. Sometimes there are people talking and sometimes there's nothing but the loud noises of the bus. The Bose headphones are not sweat or weatherproof, and so are not useful outside unless the skies are clear. With winter coming, the Bose also prevent wearing a winter hat, so I decided to buy the Air Pods for use in commuting and then use the Bose once I get to my desk at work.
I have never owned AirPods before. A friend at work has regular AirPods (not Pro), and the photo attached to my review shows the difference in size. These were easy to set up -- you just hold your unlocked iPhone a couple inches away from the AirPods in their charging case (with the case open). It's all seamless. They automatically showed up in my Macbook bluetooth menu once connected with the iPhone, so all I had to do was click "connect" in the bluetooth menu.
Interestingly, the play/pause squeeze of the stem doesn't seem to work for controlling the laptop -- maybe it only works for Apple Music, which I don't use so I didn't test. And the other thing different -- and worse -- than the Bose is that if I pause on the laptop and then play again on the phone, the AirPods are not automatically connected and the music came out of the phone directly. The Bose connects to two devices at once so it will play whichever one is playing sounds (which can be annoying if the phone is playing and the computer gives a notification sound or vice versa). But in order to play again on the phone, I had to go into the phone Bluetooth menu and reconnect (not re-pair, just reconnect). So my conclusion is you have to manually reconnect for device switching. You get a little alert sound when connected -- no voice, no battery status, no "connected to xxx" like the Bose does -- nothing else.
For music quality, the Bose quality is a fair amount better -- which would be expected since they are full size over the ear headphones. The AirPods Pro are still very good though, and unless you are an audiophile, you won't be disappointed.
Charging the AirPods case uses a standard iPhone/iPad lightning charger. It comes with a cable that will connect to a later model Macbook USB C port -- so USB C to lightning. If you want to use an outlet, you will need to have an existing lightning charger, which most of us have plenty of anyway. It's hard to tell when the case is completely charged. The orange light comes on but goes off after just a few seconds, instead of just staying on and changing to green once they're fully charged. The first night I got them, I charged them in the case overnight before using them. When I connected them, they said the AirPods were only 58% charged, so I'm not sure why they weren't 100% if left in there overnight.
There is a nice new longpress feature on the volume of the iPhone that appears when the AirPods are connected to the iPhone. You can control the volume (you can't control the volume right on the AirPods, which is a slight bummer but it's okay) and noise cancelling from this new interface.
There's no tapping on these AirPods -- you slightly squeeze the little stem. There is a soft click when it registers, almost like pressing a touch pad. It took a few seconds to figure out how to do it, but it's been fine since. A longer squeeze toggles between the noise cancellation modes. There's a slightly different sound for going into transparency mode and going into noise cancellation mode, but in a quiet room it's hard to tell which mode you're in, as opposed to the Bose, which literally tells you in a voice.
Transparency mode uses microphones to let in the sound around you, so that you can keep them in while still talking to people. This is how they differ from noise isolating earbuds, which block your ear from hearing anything but don't have active noise canceling. These have noise canceling I'll talk about in a minute. But there is also an "off" mode available only (that I've found) through the volume long press described above. These just put them in basic noise isolation mode -- I'm guessing similar to previous AirPods.
For noise cancellation, they are surprisingly very effective. More effective than I thought they would be. They are best at blocking out white noise -- bus engines, office sounds, fans, etc. They are good at voices if it's just people talking in a group at a normal volume. But when I walked through the busy office cafeteria at lunch time, they did not do as good of a job as the Bose at blocking out the loud talking and other uneven cafeteria noises. Interestingly, they do a great job at blocking one-off noises like a door slamming or someone dropping something. The Bose have a hard time with sounds like that for some reason. I would say they are 80-90% as effective as the full size over ear Bose overall, which is very impressive.
For comfort, obviously the Bose are better (and sound better) for hours of desk usage, and also given that the battery on the Bose is about 19 hours and these are about 4, the Bose will be what I use all day at my desk. But for moving around, walking the dogs, commuting, and portability, the AirPods are terrific and don't hurt at all or cause my ears to sweat like the Bose do after a while.
Would definitely recommend.
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